Advertising Vehicles--What's Worked for You?

[William G. Davis]

Getting ready to launch my next Mike Gage Thriller. I'm considering various e-book advertising options. What's worked for you? 

[I. J. Parker]

I hate to say it, but nothing. Having said that, I'm told by others, who seem to have great success, that you must give your book away for free as long as feasible and pay various web sites to announce these give-aways. The idea is to rise in the Amazon rankings and thus attract attention.

 

I have tried the Amazon paid advertisement and the money was a total loss. I was willing to try BookBub (the premier promoter, it seems), and was turned down because my book (being new) didn't have enough reader reviews. In fact, I gather meanwhile that none of my books has sufficient reviews for BookBub. They are also known to turn down your request for paid advertisement if they feel your book doesn't have sufficient reader appeal. 

 

It's a crazy world out there.

[William G. Davis]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Eric Christopherson]

Giving books away free via KDP is no longer worth it in regard to sales. (In regard to obtaining reviews and potential readers of your other work, it may still be worth it.)

See if you can get a BookBub ad. You pay through the nose, but it IS worth it, return on investment wise. There are other less costly advertisement options but the ROI is more pot luck typically than in the case of BookBub.

[William G. Davis]

Yeah, I looked at their rates. Having been in advertising for some years, I know they have to have the stats to back them up. Apparently, they do. Thanks. 

[Martin Roy Hill]

I've been using Google Adwords. They sent me an introductory offer early this year giving me $100 (US) of advertising for $25. I saw a increase in my ebook sales and have maintained an ongoing, though very modest, ad campaign. I limit my budget to $1 a day, which buys me thousands of impressions and an average of three to four click-throughs a day, which takes the reader to my Amazon author's page. Sales for the ebook version of my novel, The Killing Depths, have been moderately good since I started the campaign -- between 100 and 200 copies a month.

 

I also have similar ad campaign on Goodreads, but it's more difficult to correlate that one with sales.

[William G. Davis]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Jack Getze]

Thanks for the tip on Adwords, Martin. My numbers sure don't look like yours yet, but I just sold my first book. I'm noticing a lot of big publishing stars on Google. Putting in key words for my funny mystery, Janet Evanovich is taking half-page display ads on many of them.

Is something going on here? Are more and more people searching for books on Google because the book stores are closing?

[Stephen Seitz]

I'm working on a trailer. Unfortunately, I have no budget to speak of, so progress is slow.

[Linton Robinson]

But you're learning how to do it.   Shouldn't have to spend that much on a trailer.  I have an ebook on doing trailers for free.  Message me with your email and I'll send you a copy.

Thing about trailers is... they can't just be there on YouTube.  You have to promote them.  Which comes back to the same problem.

[Stephen Seitz]

Happily, I'm a reporter, among other things. I can usually get some press. 

[Linton Robinson]

One way to look at a video--putting it up, entering it in contests, etc--is as a "license to spam". 

It might not be OK to say "Buy my book", but you can usually get away with "check out my new vid" or "please vote for my video"

[Susan]

I'm happy to endorse Linton's book on how to do trailers. I've used it and it's great. The thing with trailers is this. Many readers are visually oriented. Hey, they watch TV and YouTube, etc. I put my trailers on my book page on my website. Also on my Goodreads page.  The trick is to make it short and snappy. Thanks to Linton's advice, I shortened my trailer for DIVA (my second novel) from a minute to 30 seconds. Works much better. If it runs more than 70 seconds it's too long.